


Once Upon a Miracle

by Mizmak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M, Risen Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizmak/pseuds/Mizmak
Summary: Crowley makes a drunken declaration to God, which leads to a rather astonishing change.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 25
Kudos: 187
Collections: Good Omens





	Once Upon a Miracle

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta reader sporkofdoom, who made great suggestions and improved the beginning tremendously.

So, in the end—or nearly the end—Crowley helped, in a more or less semi-competent fashion, to save the world. All well and good.

Next, he survived the wrath of Hell by not being in Hell when it happened, which was splendid, and he helped Aziraphale survive Heaven’s vengeance by blowing fiery smoke rings, and that was _fun_.

Then, he and his best friend had a lovely celebration at the Ritz, after which they drank a good portion of the evening and night away at the bookshop, and that was like coming home after a 6,000-year vacation, and it was downright euphoric.

“Right,” he said as he left the bookshop at two in the morning, “that’s sorted.”

He hadn’t wanted to sober up, so he left the car parked there, and opted to walk home instead. Or rather, saunter in a decidedly drunken, meandering fashion.

As Crowley reached the outskirts of St. James’s Park, he paused to gaze up at the dark heavens. “Let’s not have any more upsets for a while, please.” Not that he believed anyone was listening, but you never knew. 

“Also,” he added for good measure, just in case Someone _was_ listening, “I am so done playing your ineffable bloody game.” Oh, yeah, he was totally sloshed, all that champagne and a whole lot of follow-up wine flowed through his supernatural being at a cellular level, and he loved the feeling—relaxed and easy and _free_. 

“So bugger off and leave me _alone_ ,” he shouted upward. “Got that? Right.” 

The few humans about at this hour took pains to steer clear. Crowley grinned and walked on through the park, feeling pleasantly abuzz. Then he halted once more and glared down at the ground. “That goes for you, too. Anybody down there gets any _ideas_ , and they will _not_ live to regret it. I’m done with you lot. Got that?”

The ground remained steadfastly silent.

“Yeah, right.” To hell with Hell. “ _Done_.” 

He gazed upward once more. “Done, done, done.” No more wars. He hated thinking about the look on Aziraphale’s face earlier that day, when he’d suggested that Heaven and Hell weren’t done with humanity yet. If such a war ever did come, he knew whose side they’d both be on.

“Not having any more _testing_ of the humans!” he shouted at the Almighty. “Great pustulent mangled bollocks to the great blasted plan!”

Crowley came to an unsteady halt as he suddenly heard, somewhere in his subconscious, a chastising angel’s voice. Yeah, Aziraphale didn’t like it when he said things like that… _May you be forgiven…._

“Don’t need to be forgiven.” He swayed a bit as he stared at the clear sky, and the glorious stars. “Only ever asked questions, damn it. Should never have fallen or sauntered _anywhere_ …” Then again, if he hadn’t been sent to Hell, and then to Earth, he would most likely never have met Aziraphale.

Crowley’s angry mood softened at that thought. _Aziraphale_. His friend, his world. 

“Well, there’s that,” he admitted, still standing unsteadily as he gazed at the Heavens. Was She listening? Did that star suddenly shine more brightly at him just then? 

“ _Aziraphale_ ,” Crowley called out towards the stars. “I’ll give you that one. Good job. Best thing ever, in fact.” That sounded a tad weak, now that he thought it over. Yeah, he didn’t want any more nonsense from Above or Below, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t eternally grateful for being given the chance to live on Earth with a certain angel.

The star he’d noticed before twinkled at him again.

_Weird_. Possibly he had drunk more than he ought to have drunk. 

Crowley waved an arm at the star. “I love the bastard!” he shouted. “All right? Got that? Good. _Good_ plan, that bit, anyway. Whatever. Angel. Demon. Love. Hah.” He waved his other arm at the star. “I never asked to be a demon. Love an angel _anyway_. So there!”

Then, out of the dim and distant past, of which he had quite a lot, a snippet of conversation arose, a single moment which had etched itself in his memory because it involved Aziraphale. All of their encounters held a special place in his mind where every gesture, word, glance, and touch—few but precious touches—lived as if written with indelible ink on indestructible 24-karat gold-leaf covered pages.

_“Fancy running into you here!”_ the angel had said in a Roman tavern long ago. _“Still a demon, then?”_

Crowley smiled at the memory of how he had chastised the cheeky bastard for asking such a stupid question, and how he had replied, _“What else am I going to be? An aardvark?”_

He stared at the sky some more, and then he looked at the ground. Somewhere in the murky depths beneath his slightly weaving feet, Hell stood, home to every demon but one. And that one was not going back, not ever. 

“It’s not my home,” he shouted downwards, and then upwards as well. “Got that?” He took a deep breath that he didn’t need to take but took anyway. He was on Earth, in a human form, and he liked it that way and he embraced as many human ways as he possibly could.

Crowley shook a fist at both Heaven and Hell. “I am not playing the game anymore. Nope. I am not going anywhere but here.” He waved an arm around at the park, the city, the human world. And towards a certain bookshop. Forever and ever on Earth with his angel, that was _his_ plan.

But would it work forever…Crowley frowned. What if there _was_ another war between Heaven and Hell, or between those two and humanity…or what if the Earth wound up in a puddle of goo some other way someday…what then? Where would he go? He’d been disowned by Hell. Off to Alpha Centauri? 

And what of Aziraphale? If enough time had passed, or if God decided the Archangels had overstepped their bounds, would She let him return to Heaven when the world ended? Where Crowley could not follow…but surely Aziraphale would choose to stay by his side, yes?

But could Crowley deny him that chance…how could he ask that of him?

_Too much thinking_ …who the hell thinks about metaphysical issues at oh-dark-thirty in the morning?

Crowley stared at that one peculiar star, anger fled, replaced by confusion and longing and sadness. “Listen,” he said, not stridently, only wistfully. “I just want to be with him forever. I’ll do whatever you ask of me. I’ll be whatever you want me to be. Just let us be together forever and ever and ever and ever.” He decided to add one more for good luck. “And _ever_.”

Aziraphale was an angel. He was a demon. They were hereditary enemies. Not possible—was it so impossible?

“I never asked to be a demon,” he said, a little more loudly this time.

Then he smiled at that ancient memory, and, feeling a bit more defiant once more, he yelled at the top of his not-quite-human lungs, “ _I hereby declare myself to be an aardvark!”_

_Hah. Take that, God, Satan, and everybody in between._

Had that one star just shone more brightly still? _Nah_. Crowley waited. Nothing happened. Not that he expected anything to happen, but you never knew.

With a new spring in his off-kilter, intoxicated step, Crowley headed off once more through the park towards the general direction of Mayfair.

And then a flash of lightning streaked through the night sky, and he felt the bolt crash around him in a brilliant whiteness that took all of his unnecessary breath away.

_Oops_.

When the world around him returned to a semblance of normal, just an ordinary walkway through an ordinary park in the middle of the night, Crowley stood frozen there, suddenly just a little more sober.

He patted his human form in as many places as he could reach. He didn’t feel any different. Nothing seemed to have changed in any way.

Except that he no longer felt relaxed and easy and free.

_Damn_. Was that merely a coincidental bolt of lightning? There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

He waited for a good while, cautiously looking this way and that, and occasionally taking a quick glance upward and downward.

Nothing.

“Okay,” he said to the universe at large. “Um. Fine. Are we good?” He looked up and down again. “Er…ngk. I’ll take silence as meaning we’re all just peachy. Right?”

It was very, very silent.

“Good.” Crowley blew out a long breath. “Going home, then. Never mind me. Nothing to see here at all.” 

He took a few tentative steps. Great. Everything still worked. With a slightly nervous determination to believe that all was normal, he strolled onward.

A few seconds later, he encountered a human who obviously had criminal activity in mind.

Crowley may have been inebriated, but he was still alert enough to notice the lanky youth who darted out from behind a tree, and he also noted the older woman who walked ahead, carrying a large handbag. When he saw the young would-be thief flick out a knife and pick up his pace towards the woman, Crowley snapped his fingers without a moment’s thought.

The young man tripped on nothing at all, and cursed as he fell, clutching his sprained ankle. Crowley staggered up to him, picked up the knife which had fallen, and pointed it towards the miscreant. “Go home.”

“Sod off! My ankle—”

Crowley turned his face into a writhing mass of maggots. “Go home _now_.”

“Christ!” The thief leapt to his feet and limped off in the opposite direction, yelping in pain at each step.

Crowley turned his face back to normal, dropped the knife into a waste bin, and started off again towards Mayfair.

He had gone only a few feet when he realized what he had just done, and he came to an abrupt stop.

_What the…he had just performed a miracle. An_ angelic _one._

“Oh, Hell,” he muttered. _Or should that be, ‘Oh, Heaven’?_

He instantly sobered himself up, and then he spun on his heel to head straight back to the bookshop.

Of course, Aziraphale wouldn’t be asleep. He _did_ sleep—Crowley had seen the bed upstairs before, and had asked about it once.

“I sleep when I’m tired,” his friend had replied. “Which is oh, maybe once a month or so?”

The likelihood that the angel would be up at any given hour of the day or night was therefore quite high, and indeed, when Crowley opened the locked door and entered the bookshop, Aziraphale looked up from his desk and said, “Did you forget something?”

“No.” Crowley strode to the sofa and sank down. “Sober up, if you haven’t.” 

“I did so already.” Azirphale put down the book he’d been holding, got up, and came over to stand by the sofa. “Is something wrong?”

“You could say that.” Crowley still had a foul taste in his mouth from getting rid of all that alcohol. “Got any tea?”

Of course he had tea. He always had tea.

Aziraphale went over to the small kitchen area to fix up two mugs. Crowley watched his every precise movement, while wondering exactly how to start this conversation. 

_Oh, by the way, I just did something angelic without a moment’s hesitation._

Or maybe, _Have you ever tempted someone without a reason?_

That was never going to happen. Perhaps, _Angel, I think I’ve been around you too long. Your angelness is rubbing off on me_.

Only he didn’t think that was true. He doubted that what happened had happened because of Aziraphale. 

His dear angelic best friend finished making the tea, and handed a mug over before settling into the armchair across from the sofa. “Now, then, my dear. What’s bothering you?”

Crowley took a good long drink of the soothing liquid. He cradled the mug in both hands, leaning forward, arms resting on his thighs. “I don’t know. Something very odd just happened.” He looked up, into Aziraphale’s concerned gaze. “There was a mugger. He was about to go for a woman’s purse. I made him trip, and sent him on his way.”

“That was kind of you.”

“I know!” Crowley shook his head. “I didn’t even _think_ about it. I just snapped my fingers and performed a _good_ miracle. _Why?”_

Aziraphale smiled. “Because you’re a good person. I’ve been telling you that for ages.”

Crowley opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. So he took another long drink, and then set the mug on the coffee table. He leaned back. “I may have done something else.”

“Oh? Such as?”

“Er…um…well, I sort of talked, or maybe it was more like shouted…to uh…God.”

“Oh, dear.” Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Possibly that’s not a good idea right now, not when our freedom is so new.”

“I know! I’m sorry.” Hell, if he had spoiled things for his Angel, he’d never forgive himself. “It was just—I was done with it all—the Great Plan or the ineffable bloody plan or whatever game the Almighty’s been using us as pawns in—yeah, I know it’s over and the world is fine and we’re both fine and I should just shut up about it but I was in a mood and I looked up at the stars and…and…it just came out!”

Aziraphale rose to cross to the sofa. As he sat down, he asked, “What did you say?”

That was a little foggy in his mind. “Um, something about not playing Her game anymore….about leaving me alone. There was this star—it kept _blinking_ at me.”

“Oh, dear.”

“What does that _mean?”_ Then he recalled a few of the other things he had yelled at the Almighty, the things he deeply hoped would mitigate his impertinence. “But it wasn’t _all_ bad! I thanked Her, too.”

“Yes? For what?”

“Er…um…you.”

“Me?” Aziraphale raised both eyebrows.

Crowley suddenly found the carpet immensely interesting to look at. The table, too. And his feet. Anything, really, other than the angel sitting beside him. “Yeah…you know. That you’re here. On Earth. That I was given company…um…a friend.” _Someone to love_.

“Ah, I see. Was that all?” 

Had he heard a hopeful note in Aziraphale’s tone? Crowley gave him a quick glance. Yes, Aziraphale had a sort of yearning expression, yet there was worry beneath it, as well there should be, given what Crowley had done this night. And there was more cause for concern—he still had one more confession to go.

He left off any more thoughts along the lines of _Oh, well, I said that I loved you_ , and switched gears to escape those thoughts.

“Not quite all,” he said. “I went and yelled at Hell, too.” 

“My dear fellow, what were you _thinking?”_

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking, I was bloody drunk!” _Damn_.

“Fine.” Aziraphale sighed, and then he patted Crowley’s shoulder. “And do you recall what you said to Hell?”

Oh, yes, _that_ he did remember clearly. “Yeah. I told them I was an aardvark. Both of them—Heaven _and_ Hell.”

“An _aardvark?”_

“How is your memory for ancient Rome, Angel?”

Aziraphale looked thoughtful for a few moments, then his eyes brightened. “Oysters! Such a delight.”

“ _Before_ that.”

“Hm? Let me think…I ran across you in that tavern…and—oh!”

“Got it now?”

“An aardvark. Crowley, are you saying that you told Heaven and Hell that you weren’t a demon anymore?”

Crowley took a long drink, then set down the mug. “Yup. And er, there was this bolt of lightning that sort of happened right after.”

Aziraphale went pale. “Oh, Crowley, what have you _done?”_

“I don’t know! Maybe it was just a coincidence?”

“There are no storms anywhere near. Oh, dear.” The angel set his tea down and started knitting his fingers together.

Crowley sighed. “Yeah, it hit right in front of me. All around me. But I feel fine—nothing’s changed. I think.”

“Except that you then saved a woman from a thief?”

“Uh, yeah, there was that.”

Aziraphale stopped knitting his fingers together. “Well, it isn’t as if you haven’t done blessings and good miracles before—you did them for at least a thousand years for the Arrangement.”

“Yeah, but that was for _you_. This wasn’t for any reason at all. Didn’t even think about it—I just did it, as if I were—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“As if you were what? An angel? Crowley, my dear, I honestly don’t believe you can stop being a demon simply because you _said_ you weren’t one anymore.”

He certainly didn’t feel any differently. Except for a nagging voice in the far back of his mind which wanted him to put a coaster underneath his tea mug…. “No?”

“Why don’t we find out, then.” Aziraphale snapped his fingers, and Crowley’s mug shattered, spilling tea over the table and onto the rug.

“Why did you do that?”

“Fix it,” Aziraphale replied.

What was he playing at? But Crowley shrugged. “Fine.” He snapped his fingers to restore the mug.

And mid-air, he stopped. 

He had snapped his fingers _downward_ without thinking.

“Oh, Hell.” Or should that be, _Oh Heaven?_

Aziraphale calmly finished the miracle, refilled the mug, and removed the spill. 

Angels pulled their fingers downward from Heaven when performing a miracle. Demons pulled theirs upward from Hell.

Crowley had pulled his fingers downward. 

He slowly, reluctantly, with a spasm of anxiety, took off his sunglasses, and turned his gaze to Aziraphale. “Please tell me they’re still serpentine eyes.”

The silence went on far too long.

_Bollocks._

“Wings,” Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley slowly extended them. They were white as snow.

He looked at his clothes. At least they were still nice and black. He looked good in black. 

“Well, I’ll be undamned,” he said.

Aziraphale shifted closer to him on the sofa. “My dear, I’d say it was impossible, but the evidence is quite strong that you have been forgiven.”

Crowley stared blankly at the coffee table. “Coasters.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Crowley snapped his fingers _downward_ , and two coasters appeared beneath their tea mugs. _Fuck_.

Aziraphale lay a hand on his thigh. “I believe you are in something akin to shell-shock, my dear.” He began a gentle caressing motion.

“That’s nice.” Crowley felt vaguely ill. His mind had turned into a mess of disconnected, whirling thoughts, and he felt utterly adrift in a maelstrom of half-formed ideas.

_I am a demon, not an angel._

_I am not a demon, I’m an aardvark._

_What do my eyes look like now? I should get a mirror…._

_Shit shit shit shit SHIT._

_Wings. I have angelic effing wings. I don’t look good in white… What does this even_ mean _? Forgiven? I don’t need to be forgiven dammit. I never did anything wrong._

_What the Hell slash Heaven does this_ mean, _for Somebody’s sake….!_

_Aziraphale’s hand is rubbing my thigh._

_What am I????_

_Please don’t anyone take the Bentley away. No no no no no._

_What does this mean….wait….angel…hm….if I’m really an angel now, does that mean when the Earth finally turns into a pile of burning goo someday or burns out into a cold chunk of stone a few billion or so years from now and Aziraphale returns to Heaven if they let him and surely She would let him after all that time then does this mean I can go there with him too and we will never be apart again ever ever ever?_

_Hm. That would be nice._

_Oh, did I just think that?_

Nice? _Hell._

Then, in the middle of this jumbled cacophony, Crowley was suddenly hit by a wave of love.

_What?_

He pulled his wings back out of sight, turned, and looked into Aziraphale’s eyes. _Angels could sense love_. Demons couldn’t. 

He had lost that ability when he Fell, and had never felt it again until this moment. _Love_. He sensed an immense tidal wave of love that nearly toppled him off the sofa.

“ _Angel….”_ Wait. Could he still call Aziraphale that? Of course he could—it had never been an eponym—it had always been an endearment. 

Aziraphale placed both hands on Crowley’s shoulders. “Hush. You should get some rest. This is too big a change.”

“You love me!” Crowley blurted out.

“Well, yes, but my dear, you aren’t well—”

“I am perfectly fine!” He wasn’t fine. Crowley pushed Aziraphale’s hands away and then pulled him into a tight embrace, one arm wrapped around his waist, and one hand cradling the angel’s head against his chest. “I felt _love_ ….”

Aziraphale made mumbling sounds. 

“What’s that? Oh, sorry.” Crowley let up his hold on Aziraphale’s head.

“I said,” Aziraphale replied as he looked up, “I _have_ been trying for more than a few centuries to let you know in whatever ways that I could, that you were loved.”

“But I couldn’t _feel_ it.” Yeah, he had noticed the soft looks, the beaming smiles, the occasional touches—they were subtle signals, mind, because Aziraphale was so cautious, and tentative. And sometimes when Crowley believed his friend might be closer than ever, something would snatch him from the edge, as if pulled back by invisible Heavenly strings.

“I couldn’t _feel_ it,” he repeated. “I never sensed love—you know, the way angels feel it—like, like…er….”

“You mean, like the way _I_ have felt it coming from you all these years?”

Crowley gulped. “Um, yes?”

Aziraphale smiled. “Yes. Now then, my dear, I truly do think a good long sleep might set your mind more at ease. This is a rather astonishing change, after all. I haven’t quite taken it in yet myself.”

“I’m an aardvark,” Crowley said.

“Nonsense.” Aziraphale kissed his cheek. “You’re an angel.” 

_Maybe it was an ineffable practical joke, and he’d be a demon again in the morning_. “Maybe it will wear off.”

“Do you _want_ that? Crowley, you have been _forgiven_.” He looked as if he were glowing with happiness over that fact.

Through the still-swirling chaos in his mind, the thought, _Aziraphale just kissed my cheek_ finally penetrated to the upper reaches. _Oh._ That had been _nice_. 

“Damn.” Crowley kissed Aziraphale’s forehead. “I didn’t do anything wrong. And I love you.”

“I am well aware of that. Of both those things.” 

“Good.” 

“Perhaps a better term than 'forgiven' would be _restored?"_

“Hm?” He wasn’t thinking about all that nonsense. He was thinking about kissing Aziraphale on the lips.

“I said, instead of forgiven, perhaps it’s simply a matter of God restoring you to your former— _mmph!”_

It was a positively angelic kiss. 

And it went on for quite some time, for once Aziraphale got over his surprise, he seemed to find a certain joy in exploring Crowley’s lips, which Crowley fully appreciated. And as he touched Aziraphale’s lips with tender affection, he felt more waves of love between them, and the love he sent towards his friend merged with the love coming from him until he could no longer tell them apart—one love, one life, one soul entwined together in two beings, in an infinite, circular wave with neither beginning nor ending.

He suddenly wanted a new vocabulary, because _nice_ no longer captured this feeling. _Friendship…love…a long long lifetime of memories…a feeling of completeness and of wonder, a sense of awe and delight, a culmination of eternal longing for the one who knew you in every possible way you could be known, and who still wanted to know more, still wanted to be at your side forever._

_Sublime_ would do.

When the kiss ended, so too did the chaotic thoughts come to rest. Crowley looked at the one who knew him in every possible way. 

“You’re an angel,” he said. “I’m an angel. This is _amazing_.” He felt _good_.

“I loved you as a demon,” Aziraphale replied, “but I believe I’ll get used to it.” He placed a hand on Crowley’s chest. “The heart is the same, no matter what.”

_So, so good_. Crowley placed his hand over Aziraphale’s. “Just one thing.”

“Hm? What’s that?”

“Please don’t start calling me ‘angel’.”

“Not even as an endearment, as you have done all these years?”

“Nope. That’s only for you.”

“Very well.”

“And don’t expect me to change my wardrobe to beige or white or sky blue.”

“Black will do fine, my dear. It suits you.”

“Thanks.” _Oh God this felt right, and good, and astonishing and it wasn’t going to end, he knew that now._

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said, “you _would_ like to give up one remnant from your demonic lifestyle, though?”

“Not the car!” Crowley twisted his head round to look out the bookshop window to make sure it was still parked there. It was. _Thank Heaven_. Literally.

“No, no, not the car. I meant your _flat_.”

Several thoughts about that request entered Crowley’s mind at once and collided. _Give up my flat. That’s where I live. It’s cool and elegant and modern and where else would I live…_ Oh. _Oh_. 

His thoughts settled down again into the obvious answer, which could not be clearer, despite his taste for cool and elegant and modern. While no amount of angelic transformation was going to turn him into someone who liked rose-patterned curtains or crocheted throws or massively cluttered bookcases, he was perfectly willing to put up with such inelegant décor if it meant living with his best friend.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“We can bring your houseplants over.”

“And I have a few souvenirs.”

“Not the furniture, though, if you please.”

“What, no throne chair?”

“I would prefer not.” Aziraphale shifted away a little. “Now, I do believe you really ought to get some sleep. Upstairs, that is, in the bedroom.”

Crowley realized that he did feel remarkably tired. He yawned and stretched. “Fine.” Then he smiled. “You’re looking a tad peaked yourself, Angel.”

“It’s been nearly a month since I had a good rest, yes.”

“Right.” Crowley got to his feet, and held out his hand. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Aziraphale took his hand and allowed himself to be pulled up. 

They made their way up the stairs and into the bedroom, where Crowley did a double-take when he crossed in front of a mirror. _His eyes_.

He peered closely at the strange image of his own face with the wrong eyes—they were a golden brown, with round pupils. No, no, this simply would _not_ do. “Snakes aren’t bad things at all!” _All creatures great and small_.

“What’s that?” Aziraphale stood by the wardrobe, carefully and slowing taking off his clothes. 

Crowley turned to him, pointing at his eyes. “I’m not having these.”

“Well, really, my dear. Don’t you want to be able to walk about in public without sunglasses?”

“Angel, I could have done that any time. One snap of my fingers, and humans would have seen my eyes as normal, ordinary, boring eyes like these. I don’t do that because the sunglasses are part of the _look_. Do _you_ like them this way?”

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “Now that you mention it, they are a little too ordinary. I did love them before. They were…um…rather striking.”

“Precisely.” Crowley looked pointedly at the ceiling. “Snakes weren’t created by Hell. They’re God’s creatures. And I liked snakes _before_ I was cast out, so I don’t see why I can’t still have serpentine eyes.” He paused. “Or black wings, either.”

“Are you saying those weren’t so much demonic choices as they were _aesthetic_ ones?”

Crowley stared at him. Aesthetics? Who in the world talked aesthetics at oh-dark-thirty in the morning? “I just know what I like. Snakes.” He shook a fist at the ceiling. “ _Your_ snakes!”

“My dear, please don’t start yelling at God again. It turned out well so far, but I do think in future you might want to be careful about speaking to the Almighty when you’re _in a mood_.”

“Yeah, but—” He wanted black wings. And golden yellow eyes with black slits. There was simply no reason an angel couldn’t have those things, as far as he was concerned. At least, he couldn’t remember getting the memo, back in the day, which outlined any sort of Heavenly dress code. “But I don’t want to be an ordinary angel. I’m _not_ an ordinary angel.”

Aziraphale moved close to take hold of his arm. “No, you certainly aren’t.” Then he took hold of Crowley’s hand. “Fine.”

“What are you going to do?”

Aziraphale smiled as he gazed upwards. “ _Lord_ , if you can hear me, do please grant this one small favor?” He squeezed Crowley’s hand. “Please?” He took a deep breath. “For _me?”_

They stood there, hand in hand, quietly waiting. Crowley wondered if perhaps he ought not to get into _moods_ quite so often, and he wondered if perhaps he should have left well enough alone, and just as he started to wonder if he was a complete fool, a celestial golden light filled the room.

_No turning back now_.

The warm light surrounded them, and above them, a golden wing hovered, fluttering ever so softly. The tip of the wing dropped down to touch first Crowley, and then Aziraphale.

**_Your wish is granted_**.

Crowley’s wings extended of their own accord, and he watched as they slowly turned from white to gray to black once more. 

**_Aesthetics are what we do_**.

He nearly burst out laughing. Instead, he turned to gaze into Aziraphale’s eyes. “Well?”

“Yellow with black slits, my dear. They are extraordinarily beautiful.”

Crowley nodded. As he drew his wings out of sight, he looked upwards, and with a true feeling of gratitude, he whispered, _“Thank you.”_

Aziraphale looked up as well. “Indeed. _Thank you with all my heart.”_

The golden wing rose as the celestial voice of God replied, **_Bless you, my angels. Love without end. Love, and be loved, forever_**. There was a brief pause. **_And ever and ever and ever_**.

Then the wing and the light vanished as suddenly as they had come.

Aziraphale, looking utterly adorable in a half-undressed, more disheveled state than Crowley had ever seen before, leaned in to kiss him.

This time it was short and sweet and exactly what he needed. 

“Now, then,” Aziraphale said as he let go Crowley’s hand, “shall we do what we’ve been told to do?”

"Love, and be loved?" He liked the sound of that.

“In our own angelic fashion.”

“Right.”

“And no more talking to supreme beings for a while.”

“Got it.” Definitely going to keep that urge in check.

They changed into pyjamas and climbed into bed, and they lay there side by side, hand in hand, heart to heart. 

What Crowley loved most, here in this best of all places, was having the best of all possible friends beside him. What he loved was the simple pleasure of being known, and knowing, while allowing for more. What he loved now, after all these years, was having the time to be _still_ in the softness of the night, entranced by nothing more than comfort in the darkness.

He turned into Aziraphale’s embrace. “I’m content,” he whispered, and that wasn’t something he ever thought he would truly be. But he was. “Just hold me, Angel. That’s all.” 

And that was everything.


End file.
